ZenPayroll, a San Francisco startup with cloud-based software for payroll processing for small companies, is doing more than merely enabling companies to allow employees to allocate a portion of their paychecks to charities. The startup has begun helping employers to match those donations.

“It’s a way for the employer to say, I want to support you, my employee, in the things you care about,” Josh Reeves, chief executive and cofounder of ZenPayroll, told VentureBeat in an interview. “I want to give you more financial resources to give to the causes that you believe in.”

ZenPayroll had always planned to implement the feature, and indeed it’s been almost a year since the startup introduced the Giving option that allows employees to make donations from their paychecks. Now ZenPayroll can more confidently declare that it supports what Reeves calls “the human side of payroll.”

Above: ZenPayroll companies can control what percentage of employee donations they want to match.

Image Credit: ZenPayroll

Once employees give the green light to make a donation to any of several thousand charities and decide how much they want to give and how, the company administrator can turn on matching and set a limit on how much the company will donate for each employee per year.

Reeves clearly believes in the importance of donating to nonprofits. He helped start a nonprofit while in college at Stanford University and still serves as an advisor, he said. So he knows about the importance of cash flow for such organizations.

“Nonprofits love recurring donations,” he said.

ZenPayroll works in 31 states in the U.S., and it will be up and running in all 50 states in the first quarter of next year, Reeves said. The startup announced a $20 million round in February. Competitors include ADP, Intuit, and Paychex.

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]]>0ZenPayroll now lets companies match employees’ charitable donationsVCs gave Zenefits $66.5M — because even they don't want to deal with HR paperworkhttp://venturebeat.com/2014/06/03/vcs-gave-zenefits-66-5m-because-even-they-dont-want-to-deal-with-hr-paperwork/
http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/03/vcs-gave-zenefits-66-5m-because-even-they-dont-want-to-deal-with-hr-paperwork/#commentsTue, 03 Jun 2014 19:01:32 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1484553As we’ve said before, HR may not be super sexy, but it sure is catching investors’ eyes. Today, payroll and benefits software company Zenefits announced that it has raised $66.5 million as a second round of institutional funding. This round is coming in only a few months after its first round in January and less […]
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As we’ve said before, HR may not be super sexy, but it sure is catching investors’ eyes.

Today, payroll and benefits software company Zenefits announced that it has raised $66.5 million as a second round of institutional funding. This round is coming in only a few months after its first round in January and less than a year and a half after its launch.

Zenefits makes cloud-based software that takes care of companies’ payroll and other HR administrative tasks. Cofounder Parker Conrad started Zenefits after realizing how much of a hassle the old way of managing these things was while at his previous startup SigFig.

“We had no HR person, and so all the admin crap floated to the top,” Conrad said to Venturebeat. “I ended up having to deal with it, which I deeply resented. I would much rather do something else. I went through a list of things I hated dealing with at that last job, and Zenefits is now building features one by one so other people won’t have to.”

While there are certainly other companies out there that are also working to make annoying HR paperwork a thing of the past, Zenefits quick growth is notable. The company raised $15 million only a few months ago, and has since grown its team from 15 to 120 employees, and tech companies now represent only half of its 2,000 customers, in contrast to comprising 96 percent three months ago.

“Zenefits is well on its way to 1,300 percent growth for the year, which is some of the fastest growth we’ve ever seen. With Zenefits, no startup entrepreneur or human resources head and their team should ever have to spend mind-numbing hours on tedious administrative HR paperwork again, allowing them all more time to lead” said Andreessen Horowitz general partner Lars Dalgaard, who led this round.

“This was the hottest deal in Silicon Valley five months ago, and it still is today.”

“Zenefits is scaling faster than any software company that we’ve ever seen,” said IVP general partner Jules Maltz.

“As a later-stage investor, it’s rare for us to participate in large Series B rounds. We’ve only done this a few times for exceptional companies including Dropbox and Snapchat.Zenefits is on a similar trajectory, and we’re thrilled to help them disrupt the HR software market,” added Maltz.

The company said it will use the new funds to continue building out its technology, as well as to expand its team as it continues to grow.

Andreessen Horowitz led this round, with additional participation from IVP, SV Angel, former Twitter and Google executive Elad Gil, and actor Jared Leto.

Zenefits was founded in January 2013 by Conrad and Laks Srini, and is located in San Francisco. This new round of funding is bringing the company’s total funding to date to $83.6 million.

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]]>0VCs gave Zenefits $66.5M — because even they don't want to deal with HR paperworkZenefits adds more features to save businesses from loads of ‘admin crap’ (exclusive)http://venturebeat.com/2013/11/13/zenefits-adds-more-features-to-save-businesses-from-loads-of-admin-crap-exclusive/
http://venturebeat.com/2013/11/13/zenefits-adds-more-features-to-save-businesses-from-loads-of-admin-crap-exclusive/#commentsWed, 13 Nov 2013 22:36:51 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=860113Zenefits has managed to do the impossible -- get people excited about back office operations.
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Zenefits has managed to do the impossible — get people excited about back office operations.

The hot startup has added a whole slew of new features to its platform, creating a robust set of tools for managing benefits, payroll, and human resources.

“We found that a lot of people were using us instead of a traditional HRIS [human resources information system], but the main things missing were vacation tracking and reports,” cofounder and CEO Parker Conrad said in an interview. “We are building more and more core HRIS features, because our philosophy is that doing all these things in one place dramatically simplifies your life.”

Zenefits’ new features include additional tools for on-boarding and off-boarding employees — both cases involve a lot of paperwork and manually updating various systems.

Administrators can now automatically generate offer letters and agreements, and add/remove employees from payroll and benefit plans with a few clicks. New features include employee handbooks, IP assignment agreements, and welcome letters. This puts Zenefits in competition with HR services like BambooHR, SilkRoad, and Workday.

As Conrad mentioned above, existing customers asked for paid time off (PTO) tracking. Now employees can request vacation through Zenefits, which will automatically email the manager for approval. The system tracks everyone’s balances, accruals, and liabilities, and presents a calendar view of who has time off when to prevent overlaps.

All these functions traditionally required a lot of paperwork , spreadsheets, and labor to keep synced and up-to-date.

“We had no HR person and so all the admin crap floated to the top,” he said. “I ended up having to deal with it, which I deeply resented. I would much rather do something else. I went through a list of things I hated dealing with at that last job, and Zenefits is now building features one by one so other people won’t have to.”

Employees self-manage their accounts by updating their information when there is a change. When information is changed in one system, Zenefits automatically updates it on others and makes the necessary changes for deductions, tax withholdings, and insurance plans, etc.

“Most HRIS systems are static, they aren’t connected to anything else. So when you update information in one place, it doesn’t update in others,” Conrad said. “If you move or get married, that has to be changed with HR, payroll, medical insurance, life insurance, etc. It is a huge administrative headache that requires a full-time staff. With us, it all happens automatically.”

I have witnessed plenty of entrepreneurs getting gooey-eyed when talking about Zenefits mainly for this reason — it automates operations (for free) that would otherwise require paid employees, and it saves a significant amount of time and effort. Zenefits’ system has detailed information about tax codes, insurance policies, and regulations, and all the nitty-gritty, important stuff that most entrepreneurs would rather avoid dealing with.

Reporting was another highly-requested feature. Zenefits can now be used to create custom reports with data about turnover, employee contact information, etc.

Conrad said Zenefits’ sweet spot are companies with between 50 and 300 employees. It currently has 300 customers in 37 states, and it only launched 7 months ago.

Zenefits is basically a management layer that sits on top of other existing systems. It is free because it makes money as an insurance broker. Brokers play a key role in the world of corporate insurance — they help businesses buy and manage insurance policies, offer consulting services, conduct risk assessments, manage benefit issues, assist with claims, and more, and they collect a monthly commission.

“This is the great hack in our business model,” Conrad said. “Insurance brokers make way too much money for the value they provide. We say switch to us and we will do way more for you than other insurance brokers will do. About 50 percent of our customers are moving to us as their broker. We can get them set up in 30 minutes, it is a no brainer.”

The software integrates with existing payroll and benefits systems, or helps businesses choose plans and get set up. From there, everything can pretty much happen online.

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]]>0Zenefits adds more features to save businesses from loads of ‘admin crap’ (exclusive)CloudPay nabs $16M from Pinnacle, Rho, & others to improve payroll managementhttp://venturebeat.com/2012/12/05/cloudpay/
http://venturebeat.com/2012/12/05/cloudpay/#commentsWed, 05 Dec 2012 17:51:49 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=584754Cloud-based payroll management business CloudPay has raised $16 million in its second round of funding, a move will help it grow and further refine its software-as-a-service for small and large business payrolls.
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Cloud-based payroll management business CloudPay has raised $16 million in its second round of funding, a move will help it grow and further refine its software-as-a-service for small and large business payrolls.

CloudPay offers payroll management software to companies in 160 counties and it supports 30 currencies and 26 languages. Some of its biggest customers include ADB, Siemens, Education First, and the Singapore Mercantile Exchange.

“Globalization and the competitive landscape it fosters are giving rise to borderless organizations,” CloudPay CEO Andrew Pearson said in a statement. “As a result, traditional businesses must modernize and become increasingly multi-national in their approach. … CloudPay is most often selected because of the efficiencies gained by the use of its centralized SaaS technology to ensure compliance, management control, global visibility, and detailed business intelligence.”

The new round of funding was led by Pinnacle Investment Partners, Rho Ventures, and other institutional investors.

London and Raleigh, N.C.-based CloudPay was founded in 1996, and it recently changed its name from Patersons Global Payroll in October. Before this funding round, the company raised more than $50 million in equity funding.

]]>0CloudPay nabs $16M from Pinnacle, Rho, & others to improve payroll managementADP launches Vantage cloud suite to service ’95 percent’ of HR needshttp://venturebeat.com/2011/10/03/apd-vantage-cloud-hr/
http://venturebeat.com/2011/10/03/apd-vantage-cloud-hr/#commentsMon, 03 Oct 2011 19:59:14 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=337662Payroll and HR services provider ADP on Monday launched a new cloud-based suite called Vantage HCM that will provide an incredible amount of resources to HR professionals and the employees they service. “Vantage will help HR departments with over 95 percent of their needs,” Don Weinstein, senior VP of product management at ADP, told VentureBeat. […]
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Payroll and HR services provider ADP on Monday launched a new cloud-based suite called Vantage HCM that will provide an incredible amount of resources to HR professionals and the employees they service.

“Vantage will help HR departments with over 95 percent of their needs,” Don Weinstein, senior VP of product management at ADP, told VentureBeat.

ADP is best known for processing the payroll checks of 1 out of 6 American workers, but it is also one of the oldest cloud software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers in the country. However, it is taking a huge leap with the Vantage software suite by broadening its scope and putting almost all of the tools HR managers need in a single place.

ADP spent 18 months developing Vantage HCM and describes it as “the industry’s first complete employee lifecycle solution.” It combines five major HR areas: human resource management, benefits administration, payroll services, time, and labor and talent management. By having all of these tools in a single cloud-based dashboard, HR pros can save time and track employee information easier and better than before.

“We have the greatest and deepest footprint in human capital management,” Weinstein said. “Historically we designed for HR departments, but this time around we’re developing for employees and managers in mind.”

Previously, ADP offered payroll and HR-specific services in different kinds of packaging. The Vantage HCM suite unifies all the services and allows them to better interact to provide more up-to-date information and interactivity. However, Weinstein noted that Vantage currently does not integrate tools like behavioral assessments or reward programs that HR professionals often use.

Another important element to Vantage is its wide-ranging mobile accessibility. The service works through ADP-built apps and mobile browsers for smartphones and tablets, on top of running on PCs. ADP has native apps for iOS and can be used through mobile-optimized sites on Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7 devices. Weinstein said 30,000 ADP clients are already using mobile-based ADP services.

ADP currently serves 570,000 clients across the globe and has more than 200,000 clients using its cloud-based services. Some of ADP’s biggest customers include Alcoa, Sodexo and Swiss Re.

We’ll be exploring the most disruptive cloud trends at our inaugural CloudBeat event on Nov 30-Dec 1 at the Sofitel Hotel in Redwood Shores. We’ll be unveiling some of the most revolutionary cases of cloud adoption by the enterprise. It’s invite only. To apply to come, click on this link.